


Growing

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Curtain Fic, Domestic, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Polyfidelity, Pregnancy, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was a flutter, just under her navel; a tiny beat, wings flapping.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(Or: Holly's pregnant and each Grump feels the baby kick for the first time in their own time and way).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



> This is part of a shared universe with theseusinthemaze in which the Grumps are in a big old shared poly relationship. Previous stories in it are not on AO3 but are [here](http://theseusinthemaze.tumblr.com/post/148031167369/a-very-pregnant-holly-is-serviced-in-every-which) and [here](http://theseusinthemaze.tumblr.com/post/147982794034/commanderbang-half-dressed-semi-public-sex-while).

**Holly:**

It was a flutter, just under her navel; a tiny beat, wings flapping; the tiniest little bit of a hint that something living existed deep within her body. When she told her gyno about the sensation he laughed, said it was a quickening; very few women felt that when they were in early pregnancy. The baby’s first movement.

She wasn’t surprised to learn that the baby was one in a hundred already. 

**Ross:**

She was constantly, floridly, painfully ill those first few months; he spent them trying to feed her, shelter her, hold her up. They’d been through worse, she reminded him as she took her vitamins and waited for the nausea to pass. 

Ross tended to be sure of himself, and he never worried overmuch. That he was frightened for her made all of the difference. Holly told herself she’d pay him back when she was over this, sipping her flattened ginger ale as he rubbed her shoulders.

Payback arrived when they were on a long flight back from Australia five months into her pregnancy. She’d been listening to the in-flight movie, celebrating her blessed lack of nausea by chomping away on the nuts she’d been given when she felt it – the sudden, quick, surprising thud.

“Ross,” she whispered urgently. His eyes had been focused on his phone and they snapped up and toward her as she spoke.

“What?! What’s going…” He trailed off as she grabbed his hand and placed it over the expanding rise of her stomach. Ross quickly understood what he was feeling; his eyes softened, grew kinder, and the tips of his fingers ghosted along the softness of her flesh. “You’re late, kiddo,” he said softly. “You should have done that a few hours ago. You could’ve impressed nana and grampy.“

“Then we would’ve missed our flight,” she pointed out. Ross grinned

“I wouldn’t have minded,” he insisted. His hand followed the baby’s rolling progress across her midsection reverently.

A quiet Ross, she thought with a small smile, was definitely worth two months of nausea.

**Arin**

“So is that the dick?”

Holly sighed, pressing the ultrasound to her breast. “No, it’s not,” she said flatly. Arin frowned, peeking at his own copy of the picture, tilting it every which way to try and make out individual body parts. 

“Then that’s the dick?” he asked, pointing at a foot.

“You’re officially going nowhere near this kid’s anatomy homework,” she said. He chuckled and carefully folded the picture up, tucking it into the waistband of his pajama pants for safekeeping. 

“Oh sure, have Ross do it, with his super great sense of anatomy and his extra-good shadowing techniques!”

Holly’s laugh cut off with a squeak. Arin glanced at her. “What? Is it cramps?!”

Those were the last words she wanted to hear him say ever. “No!” she choked out, grabbing his hand and leading it to her right side. “It’s kicking!” To Holly’s relief, the baby wiggled toward the vibration and Arin’s hand - and off of her left lung.

He was staring at her as if she’d swallowed the ocean in a single gulp. “That just…happens?” Arin squawked. 

She rolled her eyes as the baby kicked out at his hand. “You are going to be so helpless when it’s Suzy’s turn.”

He ignored her comment and stared at her belly.

**Suzy**

“Please, no more bird-covered onesies.’ Suzy was on her knees carefully pouring through baby outfits, gently refolding items and selecting a certain number of them to return to the stocks. They’d both worked retail and the last thing they wanted to do was make life harder for the people who worked there.

“Aww, but they’re so cute!” She immediately switched to her birb voice as she plucked a stuffed canary and tucked it into their basket. “You’re szo cute! I’m gonna call you Pickle!”

Suzy sighed, ruffling through the last of the onesies. “We have like twenty of them already! She’s totally going to come out thinking she’s a pigeon!”

“That’d make my life so much easier,” Holly sighed. “I know what to do with pigeons.”

Suzy pecked her forehead. “You’ll be fine, honey.” She rubbed Holly’s arm before returning to the cart’s bounty. “Okay, help me out – the kitty cats,” Suzy said, shaking one of the onesies, “or the frogs?”

“Um…” Holly rubbed her chin. She tilted her head. They were both cute. And expensive. It was Suzy’s treat this week, she didn’t want her quasi child-to-be to wear anything but the best.

“If you can’t pick I’m totally going to ask the baby,” she declared. 

“That’s not fair and…wait, how are you going to do that?”

Suzy grinned, putting down the clothing and splayed her palm against Holly’s belly. “Oh genie of the tummy,” she intoned. 

“Suzy!” Holly giggled.

“…One kick for yes, two kicks for no….The frog onesie…”

“Suzy this is silE!” she squawked as she felt two firm kicks.

“Or the kitty onesie?” asked Suzy. 

Silence. And then one quick kick that rattled her ribs. 

Holly frowned and glared at her belly. “How in the heck can someone be a traitor pre-birth?” she wondered absently.

Suzy grinned and tucked the cat-covered onesie into her basket. “She’s Dan’s. She’s going to dye her hair pink and join a punk band before she can walk.”

Holly just moaned and allowed herself to be dragged toward the mobile display at the back of the store.

**Barry**

“So, according to this book,” Barry said, sitting down beside Holly at her kitchen table, “the baby has its own fingerprints, its own hair and eyelashes now.”

“That’s right.” Holly indulged his worry with gentle good humor. Bless him. This was how he was trying to keep control of the situation; by learning as much as he could about the baby and applying that knowledge to the situation. Barry was sweet; he worried way too much and she often found herself gently trying to soothe him out of his moods. Holly got up with a little effort and waddled over to him, getting both of her arms around his neck. “It’s gonna be okay, Bar. The doctor says I’m hitting all my milestones and…” she trailed off as the baby rolled over, kicking Barry in his upper back.

“Wow!” he immediately turned in his seat, tried to get his hand on her stomach. “What does that feel like?”

“Like having someone press all the air out of your lungs,” she said wryly. He winced sympathetically and rubbed her stomach. The baby squirmed under his hand and his eyes widened.

“I’m okay,” she promised. Then her thoughts were disturbed by a sudden shriek from Ross echoed up from outside the house. He had taken over bird minding and cat box-dumping duties on doctor’s orders, and he and Feathers still clashed like oil and water.

“I’m gonna go check on him,” Barry said, and gave her hand a squeeze before getting up to help her husband.

**Brian**

“…And that explains why the hinges don’t connect. Ross failed to hook up the tabs properly.” Brian unsnapped the crib’s hinges and the structure collapsed with a clatter. She winced and paused mid-nappy folding. He gave Holly a superior grin. “I’ve done this one before, I’ll fix the situation in a moment.”

“Thank you, Brian,” she said dryly. The rest of the clothing were carefully folded together and easily stored away before she heard him curse and a screw hit the floor, echoing through the air. “You sure you don’t need help?”

“Holly, I put together my daughter’s crib, this one won’t best me.” Another curse made her sigh and sit back as she watched Brian struggle desperately with the width of the crib bottom.

“I think you need to just connect the b slats with the b notches,” she said. Brian frowned at her comment and she took a step back.

To Brian’s credit he got it right. Eventually.

She poured him some lemonade and they settled down in the living room. He asked her with interest about her progress, comparing it to what he’d gone through with his own wife. She nibbled on cookies as they talked, soaking in the silence of the moment. 

When the baby decided to roll over she let out a gasp.

“Kicking again?” he raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember mine kicking that hard. You look like you just deep-throated a cactus.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you make another ‘here comes the jumpkick’ joke I’m going to smite you.”

“May I have the privilege of feeling the kid move before you end my life?” 

Holly sighed and pressed her hand against her belly. The baby squirmed and rolled, and he raised an eyebrow. She wondered what he was thinking of. With Brian one could never be sure.

She was kind of thankful of that fact.

**Dan**

Holly was as big as a house. Big as a house, possessed of achy back and sore feet, and too big to hug for most everyone except one person.

She sat leaning back against Dan’s chest, playing Metroid with him, his long arms wrapped around her belly. 

“God, I haven’t tried to finish this level in twenty years,” Dan remarked.

“It’s a day for firsts,” she said. He kissed the top of her head and sighed.

“Did the doctor say when you’re due?”

“Two weeks. Not soon enough,” she added ruefully. 

“Do you need to lie down?” she shook her head. Nestling against Dan’s chest, she murmured against his neck. “Hmm?”

“I’m happy,” she said. “That the baby’s yours,” she clarified.

Dan looked a tad nervous, swallowing, smiling bravely. “Remember what Avi said when we told him?”

She smiled. “Another miracle.”

“Yeah,”: he said quietly, cupped her cheek with his free hand, resting his other hand and the controller against her. The baby kicked mightily against his grip and he grunted in surprise. “I’m agreeing with your beautiful mother. Don’t get all jumpkicky with me.” Another kick. His brows knit together and Holly bit back a laugh.

“See what we did?” She spread his fingers out against her stomach. “She’s probably going to come out yelling like Xena and doing spin-kicks.”

The baby followed along with Dan’s stroking fingers as the moment soaked into their bones. When Dan spoke it seemed much louder than the music tootling at them in the background.

“I’m glad,” he said thickly. “I’m glad she’s mine.”

For a long time Holly did nothing but stare into his eyes. Then she reached up and pecked his cheek.

“I love you so much,” he sighed. “We all do.”

“I love you all too.” Especially Dan, she thought to herself. But she wasn’t about to admit that yet. 

That adventure could wait.


End file.
